With the growing deployment of Vision-Language Models (VLMs), pre-trained on large image-text and video-text datasets, it is critical to equip users with the tools to discern when to trust these systems. However, examining how user trust in VLMs builds and evolves remains an open problem. This problem is exacerbated by the increasing reliance on AI models as judges for experimental validation, to bypass the cost and implications of running participatory design studies directly with users. Following a user-centred approach, this paper presents preliminary results from a workshop with prospective VLM users. Insights from this pilot workshop inform future studies aimed at contextualising trust metrics and strategies for participants' engagement to fit the case of user-VLM interaction.

Advances in the control of autonomous systems have accompanied an expansion in the potential applications for autonomous robotic systems. The success of applications involving humans depends on the quality of interaction between the autonomous system and the human supervisor, which is particularly affected by the degree of trust that the supervisor places in the autonomous system. Absent from the literature are models of supervisor trust dynamics that can accommodate asymmetric responses to autonomous system performance and the intermittent nature of supervisor-autonomous system communication. This paper focuses on formulating an estimated model of supervisor trust that incorporates both of these features by employing a switched linear system structure with event-triggered sampling of the model input and output. Trust response data collected in a user study with 51 participants were then used identify parameters for a switched linear model-based observer of supervisor trust.

This paper examines how trust is formed, maintained, or diminished over time in the context of human-autonomy teaming with an optionally piloted aircraft. Whereas traditional factor-based trust models offer a static representation of human confidence in technology, here we discuss how variations in the underlying factors lead to variations in trust, trust thresholds, and human behaviours. Over 200 hours of flight test data collected over a multi-year test campaign from 2021 to 2023 were reviewed. The dispositional-situational-learned, process-performance-purpose, and IMPACTS homeostasis trust models are applied to illuminate trust trends during nominal autonomous flight operations. The results offer promising directions for future studies on trust dynamics and design-for-trust in human-autonomy teaming.

When interacting with each other, humans adjust their behavior based on perceived trust. However, to achieve similar adaptability, robots must accurately estimate human trust at sufficiently granular timescales during the human-robot collaboration task. A beta reputation is a popular way to formalize a mathematical estimation of human trust. However, it relies on binary performance, which updates trust estimations only after each task concludes. Additionally, manually crafting a reward function is the usual method of building a performance indicator, which is labor-intensive and time-consuming. These limitations prevent efficiently capturing continuous changes in trust at more granular timescales throughout the collaboration task. Therefore, this paper presents a new framework for the estimation of human trust using a beta reputation at fine-grained timescales. To achieve granularity in beta reputation, we utilize continuous reward values to update trust estimations at each timestep of a task. We construct a continuous reward function using maximum entropy optimization to eliminate the need for the laborious specification of a performance indicator. The proposed framework improves trust estimations by increasing accuracy, eliminating the need for manually crafting a reward function, and advancing toward developing more intelligent robots. The source code is publicly available. https://github.com/resuldagdanov/robot-learning-human-trust

As human-agent teaming (HAT) research continues to grow, computational methods for modeling HAT behaviors and measuring HAT effectiveness also continue to develop. One rising method involves the use of human digital twins (HDT) to approximate human behaviors and socio-emotional-cognitive reactions to AI-driven agent team members. In this paper, we address three research questions relating to the use of digital twins for modeling trust in HATs. First, to address the question of how we can appropriately model and operationalize HAT trust through HDT HAT experiments, we conducted causal analytics of team communication data to understand the impact of empathy, socio-cognitive, and emotional constructs on trust formation. Additionally, we reflect on the current state of the HAT trust science to discuss characteristics of HAT trust that must be replicable by a HDT such as individual differences in trust tendencies, emergent trust patterns, and appropriate measurement of these characteristics over time. Second, to address the question of how valid measures of HDT trust are for approximating human trust in HATs, we discuss the properties of HDT trust: self-report measures, interaction-based measures, and compliance type behavioral measures. Additionally, we share results of preliminary simulations comparing different LLM models for generating HDT communications and analyze their ability to replicate human-like trust dynamics. Third, to address how HAT experimental manipulations will extend to human digital twin studies, we share experimental design focusing on propensity to trust for HDTs vs. transparency and competency-based trust for AI agents.

Humans' trust in AI constitutes a pivotal element in fostering a synergistic relationship between humans and AI. This is particularly significant in the context of systems that leverage AI technology, such as autonomous driving systems and human-robot interaction. Trust facilitates appropriate utilization of these systems, thereby optimizing their potential benefits. If humans over-trust or under-trust an AI, serious problems such as misuse and accidents occur. To prevent over/under-trust, it is necessary to predict trust dynamics. However, trust is an internal state of humans and hard to directly observe. Therefore, we propose a prediction model for trust dynamics using dynamic structure equation modeling, which extends SEM that can handle time-series data. A path diagram, which shows causalities between variables, is developed in an exploratory way and the resultant path diagram is optimized for effective path structures. Over/under-trust was predicted with 90\% accuracy in a drone simulator task,, and it was predicted with 99\% accuracy in an autonomous driving task. These results show that our proposed method outperformed the conventional method including an auto regression family.

With the widespread proliferation of AI systems, trust in AI is an important and timely topic to navigate. Researchers so far have largely employed a myopic view of this relationship. In particular, a limited number of relevant trustors (e.g., end-users) and trustees (i.e., AI systems) have been considered, and empirical explorations have remained in laboratory settings, potentially overlooking factors that impact human-AI relationships in the real world. In this paper, we argue for broadening the scope of studies addressing `trust in AI' by accounting for the complex and dynamic supply chains that AI systems result from. AI supply chains entail various technical artifacts that diverse individuals, organizations, and stakeholders interact with, in a variety of ways. We present insights from an in-situ, empirical study of LLM supply chains. Our work reveals additional types of trustors and trustees and new factors impacting their trust relationships. These relationships were found to be central to the development and adoption of LLMs, but they can also be the terrain for uncalibrated trust and reliance on untrustworthy LLMs. Based on these findings, we discuss the implications for research on `trust in AI'. We highlight new research opportunities and challenges concerning the appropriate study of inter-actor relationships across the supply chain and the development of calibrated trust and meaningful reliance behaviors. We also question the meaning of building trust in the LLM supply chain.

The paper begins by exploring the rationality of ethical trust as a foundational concept. This involves distinguishing between trust and trustworthiness and delving into scenarios where trust is both rational and moral. It lays the groundwork for understanding the complexities of trust dynamics in decision-making scenarios. Following this theoretical groundwork, we introduce an agent-based simulation framework that investigates these dynamics of ethical trust, specifically in the context of a disaster response scenario. These agents, utilizing emotional models like Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions and memory learning mechanisms, are tasked with allocating limited resources in disaster-affected areas. The model, which embodies the principles discussed in the first section, integrates cognitive load management, Big Five personality traits, and structured interactions within networked or hierarchical settings. It also includes feedback loops and simulates external events to evaluate their impact on the formation and evolution of trust among agents. Through our simulations, we demonstrate the intricate interplay of cognitive, emotional, and social factors in ethical decision-making. These insights shed light on the behaviors and resilience of trust networks in crisis situations, emphasizing the role of rational and moral considerations in the development of trust among autonomous agents. This study contributes to the field by offering an understanding of trust dynamics in socio-technical systems and by providing a robust, adaptable framework capable of addressing ethical dilemmas in disaster response and beyond. The implementation of the algorithms presented in this paper is available at this GitHub repository: \url{https://github.com/abbas-tari/ethical-trust-cognitive-modeling}.

This work proposes a framework that incorporates trust in an ad hoc teamwork scenario with human-agent teams, where an agent must collaborate with a human to perform a task. During the task, the agent must infer, through interactions and observations, how much the human trusts it and adapt its behaviour to maximize the team's performance. To achieve this, we propose collecting data from human participants in experiments to define different settings (based on trust levels) and learning optimal policies for each of them. Then, we create a module to infer the current setting (depending on the amount of trust). Finally, we validate this framework in a real-world scenario and analyse how this adaptable behaviour affects trust.

Trust calibration is necessary to ensure appropriate user acceptance in advanced automation technologies. A significant challenge to achieve trust calibration is to quantitatively estimate human trust in real-time. Although multiple trust models exist, these models have limited predictive performance partly due to individual differences in trust dynamics. A personalized model for each person can address this issue, but it requires a significant amount of data for each user. We present a methodology to develop customized model by clustering humans based on their trust dynamics. The clustering-based method addresses the individual differences in trust dynamics while requiring significantly less data than personalized model. We show that our clustering-based customized models not only outperform the general model based on entire population, but also outperform simple demographic factor-based customized models. Specifically, we propose that two models based on ``confident'' and ``skeptical'' group of participants, respectively, can represent the trust behavior of the population. The ``confident'' participants, as compared to the ``skeptical'' participants, have higher initial trust levels, lose trust slower when they encounter low reliability operations, and have higher trust levels during trust-repair after the low reliability operations. In summary, clustering-based customized models improve trust prediction performance for further trust calibration considerations.